Terminalist - The Crisis as Condition

Terminalist – The Crisis as Condition
Release Date: 8th September 2023
Label: Indisciplinarian
Bandcamp
Genre: Thrash, Progressive Metal, Hyperthrash.
FFO: ORM, Vexovoid, Xenoblight, Demiser, Raider.
Review By: Mark Young

And they just keep coming, with more strong music to take us into the autumn and winter months ahead. Danish-American in make-up, Terminalist return with their second full-length release, and it’s full of hyper-fast thrash metal that just zips by. Lyrical ideas taken from the current state of political unrest and an overriding sense of gloom perpetuate right through the 7 tracks.

This is one of the most frenetic, whiplash-inducing albums released this year. From pressing play on Life Won’t Last to album closer Move in Strife, it is a foot-down speed demon that simply doesn’t do slow. They manage to do this whilst imbuing each song with enough musical ideas to make them interesting so that they don’t just blur by. The opener Life Won’t Last is delivered as if it was their last day on earth, ripping through into The Crisis as Condition as a top-class one-two combination. The level of quality of each song is undeniable, with everything in synch as you would expect. Solo breaks are on point, but don’t overshadow the great work done leading up to it. A Future to Weave is a great example of this, with a top solo that is allowed to breathe and flow into some neat harmony parts.

With Move in Strife, they opt to employ a classic Megadeth motif of a building riff against a melody line that is then just blown away by a hurricane of drums and trem picking that restores the BPMs to earlier speeds whilst using a Black Metal thematic approach in build and arrangement. And then, they slow proceedings to build a little breathing room before they blast back to the black. It has to be said that this track is completely different from those that precede, I’m not sure how I feel about it is fitting within, but is still a corker nonetheless,

What they have here is a collection that is the result of being apt students of the genre, taking what made the great thrash albums great and then amping up the speed, maintaining it right through. They make each song interesting from a player’s perspective, too, which is always a positive for me.

Something they are guilty of is perhaps squeezing too many ideas into each song, as they can drag a little. This is a minor note on my behalf, mainly because a short-sharp blast will hit home better in some cases. This is purely a matter of taste, and in all honesty, doesn’t detract from the quality on display here. It’s a fantastic display for their second album and provides them with a springboard to move forward. I think if they opt in more of the BM into their sound that could dilute what they have, but it would be an interesting listen because they have the tools to do thrash or black metal to a very high standard.